


they don't know you like i do

by cloudcity



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Prompt Fic, Prompt: Mantis defending Nebula, i was going through something when i wrote this i think...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-01-24 07:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcity/pseuds/cloudcity
Summary: All of these thoughts and feelings make it easy to forget, if only for a short amount of time, that she’s the only person that gets to see Nebula like this.





	they don't know you like i do

**Author's Note:**

> !!! there are mild endgame spoilers in this fic. if you don't want to be spoiled for anything then don't read this and then yell at me for spoiling something for you !!!
> 
> ANYWAYS...  
> thank you to the person that suggested this prompt to me! i'm so happy that you received my writing well enough to actually want me to write more! i'm sorry it took so long but school kicked my ass harder than i thought it was going to...................  
> 

Nebula is so many things wrapped up into an exterior that people tend to only see as one thing: callous. They see hard edges and ghosts of emotional expression long lost to the void Thanos planted in her just to watch it grow. They see detachable limbs and metal plates pulling at the last of organic skin. One plate in particular tugs just above the eyelid, intending to keep the eye pulled permanently open, but failing at its job. They see a machine.

 

But not Mantis.

 

She sees someone who will greet their alone time with a hand on her cheek, thumb gently rubbing just under her eye. Mantis has always been a physical person, but this is her favorite touch. It makes her feel as if the entire inside of her body is alight the way her antenna are. In these moments, she knows that she’ll never want anyone else to ever touch her this way. These touches say something so important that Mantis feels like she’s the universe’s very own secret keeper. _I am safe here; I know that now. I am happy here… I never thought I could be happy._

 

She sees someone who used to try and angle her body so that when Mantis lay next to her, she wouldn’t be forced to feel metal pieces. “And why should you do that?” Mantis asked when Nebula had finally admitted to what she was trying to do. “Because its… parts of me are cold and harsh. I want you to be comfortable.” Mantis had taken Nebula’s prosthetic hand—the one she never touched Mantis’ face with—and placed it just above her heart. “I am comfortable. I need you to be comfortable too.” The woman she sees—the _real_ Nebula—had teared up, seeming surprised by this. A gesture Mantis had thought was so simple, so obvious.

She sees someone that she knows better than anyone she’s ever met. Mantis feels other’s emotions, but she reads Nebula’s. It’s like opening a book, except she’s never loved a book this much before.

 

All of these thoughts and feelings make it easy to forget, if only for a short amount of time, that she’s the only person that gets to see Nebula like this. It never fails to confuse her for the brief moments after someone insinuates that Nebula is nothing more than a robot. Made even more surprising by how often it comes from someone on this very ship.

 

She doesn’t even know what Rocket is mad about this time. It’s always something. He and Nebula are hurling insults at one another from across the breakfast table. Nothing new, but she’s usually in the other room during it, only hearing enough muffled yelling to know who is doing it.

 

“I said I had it handled! It’s my ship, a’right? I know you got a stone for a heart, but do you got one for a brain too?”

 

That’s the thing that causes Mantis to sit up from where she’s leaned back in the corner seat. Nebula seems ready to just keep the back and forth going but Mantis stops her. “You do not talk to her like that! She has much more of a heart than you do. I am tired of all of you saying these things about her.”

 

Quill tries to intervene with, “he was kidding, alls good.” Mantis points at him to sit back down and he does.

 

“That doesn’t matter. Kidding is supposed to be funny, right? The way you all constantly tell her that she is less than you isn’t funny. Not to me. She cares deeply. She cares about everyone here for reasons I do not understand with how you talk to her.”

 

It gets so quiet that the sound of pages turning in a book that Thor is using to avoid the petty morning arguments sound loud and sharp. He looks up when he realizes he’s the only one making noise, gently closing the book and putting it down. He seems ready to step in with the confidence of the king he’s meant to be, but holding back with the patience of one all the same. He’s the only one of them with the proper personality to make peace in these situations. It seems to fill him with a sense of purpose in the rare moments that he does so. Mantis thinks that, hidden deep down in a place he’s not yet brave enough to reach to, he aches to go home.

 

When Mantis finally looks over, Nebula is staring wide-eyed at her. Her mouth is open just a little, but no sounds come out. Her eyes leave their previously fixed position to look at as much of the room as she can without really moving her head. When her eyes reach Rocket, though they hold no anger, he lowers his gaze to the table, pretending to have a sudden interest in an empty plate.

 

“Really didn’t mean anything by it,” he mummers, cutting through the thick silence.

 

Nebula finds her voice enough to say, “its fine.”

 

Mantis shakes her head though her girlfriend isn’t looking at her. “It is not fine.” She’s a lot calmer now when she speaks and she imagines that everyone is as grateful for that as she is. “We all come from such terrible situations. Throwing those pasts up in each other’s faces is not going to accomplish anything. Do not do it again.”

 

She gets up to leave and it takes Nebula a moment to unfreeze and follow her.

 

She walks to the cockpit and shuts it off from the rest of the ship before taking a seat. The view of the planet in front of their windshield and below their landing gear is barren. A giant ball of desert. Nebula hates it, but they’ll only be here for another day or two at most.

 

Nebula takes a deep breath before she speaks. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you like that. Not even to Rocket, as much of a pest as he is.” She rubs at the arm of the chair Mantis is on as if it were stained with something that only she can see. “You don’t have to do those kind of things for me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to…”

 

“You think I do it out of obligation?” Mantis tilts her head in confusion. Nebula has always felt that niceness directed at her is hiding a catch behind it. That still hasn’t changed, but nothing does so quickly. “I do it out of love for you.”

 

Nebula snaps her head up at that. They’ve never said those three specific words—still technically  unspoken now, but maybe as close as they’ve come yet—to one another. It was always in gestures and laced through other sentences that sound just as sweet as they dance around the point. Neither of them have experienced something like this before. It makes it hard to come right out with it.

 

Nebula takes Mantis’ face in both of her hands—something she’s only started to do recently—and leans in until their foreheads are touching.

 

Mantis feels love.

**Author's Note:**

> endgame broke me....... im fuckingbroken thank u for reading im dying inside :^)


End file.
